Grief is not a problem to be solved

Rather, Grief is an experience that needs tending to.

We live in a culture that struggles to make room for grief.

Grief is expected to follow a certain trajectory, to be tended to in quiet, orderly ways, and, most of all, to resolve or find closure.

There is an unspoken belief that, given enough time and the right tools, sorrow will loosen its grip, that absence will become easier to bear, that we will return to who we were before.

But a profound, life-altering loss rarely conforms to this expectation.

Grief is not a problem to be solved, a phase to pass through, or a wound that simply heals over time. It is something else entirely, a relationship, a reckoning, a landscape we are asked to learn how to live inside of.

Today, grief has been made clinical, diagnostic, something to be managed. If it lingers, it is labeled a disorder. If it is too expressive, it is asked to quiet down. If it is too private, it is met with concern. Everywhere, grief is measured against an invisible standard of what is "healthy" or "appropriate” or worse, “normal”.

This is why non-clinical grief support matters.

It recognizes that grief does not need to be fixed, it needs to be witnessed, tended to, given space to breathe, to move & to shift.

It is work that does not rush sorrow but sits beside it, allowing grief to be what it is: a profound expression of love, a testament to what has mattered.

A reverence for the ones we love and have lost.

The Ethical Responsibility of Grief Work

To tend to grief outside the clinical world is to hold a profound responsibility. It is easy, almost instinctive, to step into the role of fixer, to believe that comfort comes through answers, solutions, or the right kind of guidance. But ethical grief work does not seek to mend what is not broken. It does not impose a path forward, nor does it assume grief is something to move beyond.

Grief is not a disorder. It is not a failing. It is a rite of passage, one that reshapes the inner landscape of those who carry it. To walk alongside the bereaved is to honour this passage, not to rush it & not to offer false promises of closure.

Instead, we offer something far more radical: permission. Permission to grieve as one is, rather than as one should be.

Why This Work Matters Now More Than Ever

In a world that urges the grieving to return to normal, to quiet their sorrow, to be productive, to prove their resilience, non-clinical grief work is an act of resistance. It refuses to let loss be reduced to a phase or a checklist. Instead, it holds grief as sacred, something that deserves tending rather than fixing.

If you have ever felt that your grief needed to be justified, corrected, or made smaller, let me offer you this: There is nothing wrong with you.

Your sorrow is not a problem to solve. It is love, speaking in its rawest form.

And it deserves to be met with the same reverence.

With love,

Marie

If you are looking for a space where your grief is honoured, not hurried, where your loss is met with care, not correction, explore 1:1 grief support with me here.

And if you are a grief support practitioner looking to build your practice on strong ethical foundations, you can download my guide to 15 Essential Principles for Ethical & Responsible Grief work here.